OREANDA-NEWS. Officials of the Ust-Kutsky District (Irkutsk Region, Russia) are accused of arson of the forest. On April 29, REN TV published a video, the authors of which claim to have caught the criminals in the act.

The footage shows two suspects sitting on a boat. One of them is allegedly the vice head of the municipality; the second, a woman, introduced herself as a press attaché of the district; the third suspect identified himself as an employee of the emergency department.

“At the scene, a man, who is an official of the Ust-Kutsky municipal unit, was noticed. A check is being conducted on this fact,” Karina Golovachova, a senior assistant to the head of the Department of the Investigative Committee for the Irkutsk Region, said.

Detainees say that accusation is slander.